XXVI. AUNT AFFY’S FAITH AND JUDITH’S FOREIGN LETTER.
“If I could only surely know
That all these things that tire me so
Were noticed by my Lord.”
At the supper table Aunt Affy asked Judith if she would sit in the entry near Aunt Rody’s door and watch while she “ran out a minute to see Mrs. Evans about something.”
With the instinct of the story-teller Judith remembered the little girl who used to sit there and sew carpet-rags, and began to weave herself into a story; the “The Child’s Outlook” was not very hopeful, she thought, but she gave the story a happy ending, just as she herself expected to have a happy ending. She did not know why she had to sit there and watch; there had been no change for days; perhaps Aunt Affy wished her to sit and watch for Aunt Rody to die. The light from a shaded lamp on a table at the foot of the bed, did not touch the sleeping face—the sleeping face, or the dead face, and Judith’s eyes were turned away; she was watching without seeing.
She was too miserable to open a book; she was too miserable to think; she thought she was too miserable to pray.
The tears came softly, softly and slowly; face and fingers were wet; the only cry in her heart was “mother, mother.”
“Mother, I want you,” she sobbed, “will not God let you come back a little while?”
The doors were wide open all through the house; in the sitting-room there were low voices, at first her dulled ears caught no articulate word, then the voice of Mrs. Evans spoke clearly: she was saying something about “faith.”
Perhaps, the listener thought penitently, she herself was weeping because she had no faith.
Now Aunt Affy was speaking; she loved to hear Aunt Affy talk. Mrs. Evans must have come and hindered Aunt Affy in her call; perhaps they both wished to talk about the same thing; but they were both talking about faith. She wished Aunt Rody might hear; she was afraid Aunt Rody was lying there uncomforted. She had never thought of Aunt Rody as a “disciple.”
In Judith’s thought Aunt Affy dwelt apart.
If you called upon Mrs. Finch she would ask you to “step in” to the kitchen where her work was going on; Mrs. Evans with conscious pride would throw open to you the door of her prettily furnished parlor; Agnes Trembly would take you into her sewing-room; a call upon the minister meant the study; Marion’s guests were made at home everywhere within and without the parsonage; but Aunt Affy’s visitor was taken to her sanctuary, the place where she prayed to God and worshipped, to the inmost chamber of her consecrated heart. Aunt Affy kept nothing back; she gave herself.
With lifted head, and intent eyes, there in the dark she listened to Aunt Affy’s impressive speaking:
“Once, it was in June, I was in prayer-meeting, and I was constrained—a pressure was upon me—to pray for more faith. I must have more faith. Not aware that I was in special need through trial or temptation, I hesitated. Could I ask for what I did not feel the need of? But only for an instant, the constraint was strong, and so sweet (the very touch of the Holy Spirit), and in faith I asked for more faith. Then I trembled. Might this sweet pressure not be a prophecy of sorrow? Had I not just this experience, and a few days later brought the tidings of the sudden death of one very dear to me? I had the asked-for faith then, and it bore me through. Was this constraint the comfort coming beforehand? To take God’s will as he would have me take it, I must needs have this faith. It was not too hard before; could I not trust him again?
“Before the week was over, unexpected happiness was given me. Ah, I thought, this is what the faith is for! For we cannot take happiness and make him glorious in it, but for this faith. God knows we need faith to bear prosperity. So for days the happiness and faith went on together, and then, don’t be afraid, dear heart, and then came, but not with the shock of suddenness, the great strain, when heart and flesh must have failed but for the faith the Holy Spirit constrained me to ask. The prayer was in June—all August was the answer.”
“Affy Sparrow, you make me afraid,” was Mrs. Evans’s quick, almost indignant answer.
“If you will only think you will not be afraid.”
Judith listening, was not afraid. Never since her mother went away and left her alone with Aunt Affy had she felt the need of faith, of holding on to her heavenly Father, as she did to-night.
“At one time,” Aunt Affy went on with her fervent, glad faith, “I was moved to cry out: ‘O, Lord, do not leave me, I shall fall, I cannot keep myself, there is nothing to keep myself in me.’ I awoke that night again and again with the same cry in my heart, the same agony on my lips. ‘How can he leave me?’ I asked myself over and over. ‘It is not like him; especially when I have begged him to stay.’ Was I in the shadow of a temptation that was to come? The next day the temptation came; for one overpowering instant I was left to wonder if he had left me; then I knew that he was perfect truth as well as perfect love; I said: ‘Lord, I am very simple, be simple with me.’ Then the wave rolled over me, not touching me. I was tempted—tempted to unbelief; but was I tempted? Did the temptation come near enough for that? I could only say over and over, Lord, I believe in thee. My temptation came and he did not leave me.”
“Affy, you are supernatural. You have supernatural experiences,” replied Mrs. Evans in a tone of awe, and considerable displeasure.
“You and I do not know what other people in Bensalem are going through,” was the gentle remonstrance.
“I hope not through such terrible things as that.”
“I hoped I was helping you,” said Aunt Affy, grieved.
“That doesn’t help. It doesn’t help me. I’d be afraid to pray for faith if I knew it was to prepare me for trouble.”
“Would you rather be unprepared for trouble?” was the quiet question.
“I’d rather the trouble wouldn’t come.”
“Then you would rather God wouldn’t have his way with you.”
“I don’t like that way, I confess, but I have to have trouble like everybody else. You have had as little of it—the worst kind I mean, as anybody ever had—your troubles have been spiritual troubles, and you are having your own way now about everything.”
“Yes, too much. I’m afraid every day of being a selfish, careless woman. A dozen times a day I wonder what Rody would say to me if she only knew what we are doing; selling the milk for instance. Sometimes I stop in the middle of something as if her hand were on my shoulder. Your sister can come next week, then?”
“As far as I know; she’ll be ten times better help than Judith; she’s strong and used to sickness. She can lift Rody, and that’s what you want. I thought the parsonage folks had spoilt Judith for you by making her too much of a lady.”
“Judith is not spoiled,” was the quiet rejoinder.
“You will find my sister Sarah ready for any emergency. What do you think she’s been doing to get into the paper? She sent me the paper with the thing marked in it. I wish I had brought the paper; I’ll show it to you some time. You know she lives, when she’s at home, near a tunnel; well that tunnel caved in one day just after a passenger train had passed through; she knew there would be another train soon, and she had her red petticoat ready and ran out as it came thundering on, and swung it in the air until she stopped the train—and just within a few feet of the tunnel, too. Wasn’t that pluck?”
“Where’s Judith?” called Joe’s voice. “I have a letter for her; one of the foreign letters she used to be so raving glad to get.”
In the half light Judith sprang toward the letter. There was no light in the sitting-room; on the kitchen table a lamp was burning; she was glad to read it unquestioned. Snatching at its meaning she ran through the three thin sheets; then she read it deliberately, understandingly.
He had written to tell her of his marriage, and two weeks afterward, on his wedding tour, found the unmailed letter in his pocket. That letter he had destroyed, and, after a week to plan and decide what to propose to her, had written again—was writing again now, in fact. The shortest way to her forgiveness he believed to be to ask her to come to England, not to be his housekeeper, but to be his wife’s dear little friend and cousin, as well as his own. But, if she decided not to do that, and the plan did have its disadvantages (he had not yet asked his wife’s advice or consent), would she be happy to stay on at the parsonage, or at Aunt Affy’s just as usual? He would never forget her, she would always be his dearest little cousin in the world, and he knew she and Florence would be the best of friends if they could know each other. Florence had a prejudice against America, but that would wear off. He very much regretted he had never written about Florence, but she was something of a flirt and had never allowed him to be sure of her until she knew he had taken passage for America. He hoped she would write to Florence and then they would understand each other better. She must be sure to write to him by return mail. He hoped the delayed letter had not made her uncomfortable. He was always her devoted Cousin Don.
Mrs. Evans went home, passing through the kitchen; Aunt Affy had told her of the unexpected marriage of Judith’s cousin; she was curious to catch a glimpse of the girl’s face over his letter. It would be something to tell Nettie. With her usual thoughtfulness Aunt Affy asked no question concerning the letter. That night Judith could not bring herself to show the letter; the next morning she gave it to her to read, and then asked if she might be spared to go to the parsonage.
“Yes, dear child. And stay all day if you like. I’ll do for Rody. She will not ask for you. She called me Becky in the night. It’s the first time she has not recognized me. And when Mrs. Evans’s sister, Mrs. Treadwell comes, you may go and have a long rest and study again.”
“I don’t deserve that,” said Judith, breaking into sobs; “I haven’t been good, and I don’t deserve anything.”
“No matter, you’ll get it just the same,” said Aunt Affy, patting her shoulder with a loving touch. “And, after this, you are to come to me for money—you are to be my own child; my little girl, and Cephas’ little girl.”
With her head on Aunt Affy’s shoulder Judith laughed and cried; she even began to feel glad of something—not that Don was married, or that she was not to be his housekeeper, or that she was not to be Aunt Rody’s nurse; it was almost wrong to be glad when she should be disappointed; then she knew she was glad because no one in all the world had the right to take her away from the parsonage.
The way of obedience had been easier than she thought. She stayed that day with Aunt Rody, doing little last things for her, and telling Aunt Affy ways of nursing that pleased Aunt Rody that she had discovered for herself.
“She will miss you,” Aunt Affy said that evening, as Judith came into the sitting-room dressed for her walk. Doodles was snoring upon his cushion on the lounge; Uncle Cephas, at the round table, was lost in the day’s paper; Joe, at another table, was reading a book he had found under rubbish in the storeroom: this last year he had developed a taste for books.
The girl lingered, with her satchel in her hand; the dear old home was a hard place to leave; without the cloud of Aunt Rody’s presence it was peace and sunshine.
Aunt Affy, with her pretty, gray head, her light step, her words of comfort and courage, moved about like a benediction; Uncle Cephas, rough and kindly, with strength in reserve for every emergency, gave, to the house the headship it had always lacked; Joe, to-night, was fine and sturdy, and growing into somebody; would they miss her?
Was the girl going away any real part of the strength and beauty of the old Sparrow place?
She was going because she chose to go.
Joe had asked her if she were “going for good.” Was to-night another turning-point?
If she stayed would her life to come be any different?
In anybody’s eyes was there a difference between belonging to the parsonage and belonging to the Sparrow place?
No one was taking her away, she was going of her own free will.
With a sudden impulse she dropped her satchel in Aunt Rody’s empty chair and ran up the kitchen stairs to stay a few moments alone in the chamber her mother used to have when she was a little girl.